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Missing Link Found Between Human Ancestors
simetra writes "Researchers with a University of California, Berkeley team are now saying they have 'proof' of human evolution. Fossils have been found linking two types of pre-human species." From the article: "The remains of eight individuals found in the northeastern Afar region of Ethiopia belonged to the species Australopithecus anamensis -- part of the Australopithecus genus thought to be a direct ancestor to humans, according to a report due to be published Thursday in Nature magazine. 'The fossils are anatomically intermediate between the earlier species Ardipithecus ramidus and the later species Australopithecus afarensis,' he said."
Now, I'm sure that by now my opinion regarding ID and its proponents is well-known, and I'm equally sure that the majority of the Slashdot community are in agreement, but there is one positive thing I can say about ID: it's thrown a spotlight onto the theory of evolution, and has stimulated many concerned people towards a more comprehensive understanding of the theory (as well as a more comprehensive understanding of the word 'theory' as it pertains to science). Also, it seems like there have been some major advances lately...this latest story hot on the heels of the walking fish discovery, that have gone a long way towards silencing the detractors of evolution. Whether these advances are truly happening at a faster pace than in the past, or said advances are merely being perceived as such due to the increased attention evolution has been getting of late, is difficult to say...but the central point remains that the theory of evolution and the theory of ID have both been placed under the harsh light of truth, and it is ID, not evolution, that is shrivelling away.
ID has done quite a bit of harm to the minds of young people, but by virtue of the controversy, it has also done some good. Think of it as...well...evolution in action.
Anyway, this latest news is great....now I finally have something solid to point to when my fundie friends stick their fingers in their ears and chant 'missing link! missing link!'.
Rationality will triumph....it's just going to take us longer than we'd like.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
This is about the third story on "missing links" reported on Slashdot (and in the rest of the media) in the past week.
The name "missing link" implies there is a problem with evolution, and this "link" solves it, when this is in fact not the case. There will always be gaps in the fossil record, and we should not call every discovery that happens to be within one of those gaps a "missing link".
As is always said, creationists love the discovery of "missing links", since every time one is discovered, the original gap is replaced by two new ones.
You illuminate a good point. For the creationist folks, they'll continue to dispute this because their blind faith requires it. It's like the entropy argument. They'll say that spontaneous organization can't happen because of entropy and ignore the fact that entropy only applies to closed systems.
It's cool that they discovered this but it won't change the debate.
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Umm.. not a whole lot? Science doesn't have a specifically anti-Christian bias. Certain Fundamentalists simply just see something there and use it to play up their own sense of persecution.
Would anyone say a metallurgist has an anti-Christian bias?
Why can't people think that God put an devolved form of life on the planet and we evolved like the Scientists say?
Ryan - http://www.thecosmotron.com/
Intelligent Design is not a theory. It's not even a hypothesis. It's an assertion.
My karma is always excellent, and my posting philosophy is to never be swayed by the potential of bad karma. There are plenty of places to post outside of Slashdot, but holding yourself back results in the mediocre quality that gets you on average modded down.
How much you want to bet these guys have an anti-christian bias?
The facts have an anti-fundamentalist bias.
They didn't find a missing link. Now that they've found the fossils, they are no longer missing! Unless someone loses them. :-(
What they have done, though, is to create two new gaps.
Of course, there is a whole spectrum between "the Bible is literally true" and "there is no God".
I've always thought one of the best portrayals of this is the musical Jesus Christ, Superstar. If you look carefully at the dynamics of the relationship between Jesus and the Apostles, Jesus is growing increasingly frustrated that the people closest to him just don't get it; so much so that he begins to lose faith himself in the path he's on, and has to seek reassurance that any of his message will survive.
Those people who "don't get it" are the ones who wrote the New Testament. It's even worse with the Old Testament, where the documents we have now are even farther removed from what was written closer to the time of the events described, and in some cases represents written transcription of tales told by word of mouth.
It is likely (and I'm of the opinion that God doesn't exist, but I'm setting that aside for this discussion) that everything in the Bible is simply a bunch of flawed humans trying to get their minds around stuff they didn't really understand, and then it got translated and retranslated and mistranslated and untranslated and other words I can't be arsed to make up at the moment, and doesn't represent what people actually SAW or were told at all. This is possible without being any kind of evidence for or against the existence of God.
So, let's not confuse Creationism with Religion. The one comes from the other, but the two are not the same thing, and invalidation of the one doesn't speak to the other.
Laying aside the whole evolution/creationism/design thing, the language used by these archaelogists is a big red flag.
..."We have proved that one (species) is transforming into the other" [--- how did they manage to prove THAT, without even any mention of how the fossils were dated?]
Count the number of times they use language like "proved", and also words like "for the first time", "unambiguous", "It is the only place in the world",
This is not the language of careful scientists. These are people touting themselves, their research and their region in spectacular ways. It is grandstanding. It may be that the results are valid, but I think we have every right to be skeptical until other scientists weigh in.